Whenever I heard about summer camp in the past, all the tropes and mythologies revolving around the all-American camp experience swirled around in my head. It was a highly romanticized Norman Rockwell portrait. There are truths to these portrayals, but it is difficult to individualize one’s relationship with summer camp. Some people call it home. Others regard it simply as a resume builder. For me, it was a new adventure where I endured my highest highs and lowest lows—and damn if I wouldn’t do it all again.
Being responsible for at least a dozen children is terrifying, and yet, it imbues an essential sense of responsibility, confidence, and determination, without which it is impossible to reign in a gaggle of nine-year-olds. It is a liberating job in which you set the standards for yourself, and live the repercussions. Your survival depends on your attitude and perspective. Complacency is a flagrant badge of dishonor while progression, even the slightest, is woven into the fabric of the individual, carried long after the undertaking is complete.
During my summer, I learned how to communicate more effectively, not only with kids, but peers and supervisors. For once, I learned the importance of conveying what I wanted and needed, because I recognized my feelings as valuable. I learned how to talk to people.
Because we were banded together, in the trenches, empathy was more accessible, and it became easier to connect to co-workers on a human level. Everyone understood. They appreciated the difficulties and elations because they were experiencing them too. I grew up in ways I couldn’t have before. I was the teacher in classrooms and the parent in bunks. I was the adult with the answers (or lack thereof).
I learned every child has a value, even if it takes the entirety of summer to find. And if a kid does have problems, you can usually blame the parents. A parent’s nonchalance, or lack of compassion, can create an especially rowdy child. But a counselor can act as a guide that shows kids, through the scope of a different reality, love and support, but not without consequences. Attention-seeking is not rewarded with cursory purchases or temporary forehead kisses. We explore why a child feels the way she does, through conversation and understanding, followed by some inevitable hugging.
There were no breaks—a refreshing and exhausting fast-paced life. The kids’ well-being always comes before your own; a reminder for the narcissistic 21st century that, in order to enrich your personal journey, you must care for others.
On our rare days off, we gained a new sense of gratitude for adult company—drinking, uncensored language, intellectual conversation. We formed an immediate family, who banded together in the trenches. They cured tears with humbling advice, warm hugs, and endless support. We shared inside jokes and battle stories.
Most of all, I learned what it was to be a friend and have a friend. These may seem two seemingly simple concepts, but most people do not realize their true meaning. Friendship is not necessarily unconditional love—if you are not treated the way you deserve, the love can be broken. Friendship is loving someone during their best and worst moments, but being honest as well. It is refusing to accept any inferior treatment, and realizing extraordinary worth and beauty in other people, and accepting them.
Being a summer camp counselor is as much about accepting yourself as it is about accepting others.
